Leadership exchange delegates share perspectives on Boston.

• Position: BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Editor's note: In mid-September, 160 community leaders from. Denver traveled to Boston of the 2011 Leadership Exchange trip, sponsored by the Denver Metro Chamber Leadership Foundation.

We asked several of the delegates to share their perspectives on the trip with ColoradoBiz, one of the trip's sponsors. We've culled a sampling of the seven articles, which appear in (heir entirety at www.cohizmag.com.

Keeping education in the spotlight

THE DELEGATION heard from the Boston Foundation's President and CEO Paul Grogan, who spoke about education reform via the charter school movement. While the foundation's mission is to help enact widespread change, it also strives to keep issues in the public view.

One way that does this is through the Boston Indicators Project, a biennial report through the year 2030 that offers new ways to understand Boston and its neighborhoods in a regional, national and global context.

By synthesizing data from a wealth of information and research generated by public agencies, civic institutions, think lanks and community organisations, the project (www.bostonindicators.org). predicts trends and helps to develop strategic alignment among leaders in the public, private and nonprofit arenas.

The Denver Metro Leadership Foundation plans to launch its own version of this program. Tentatively titled "Colorado in Context," it will collect data from organizations like the Mile Hmh United Way, Colorado Health Foundation and Piton Foundation to help educate Coloradans about key issues, inform process and shape policy. Stay tuned over the coming months for more information.

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BY MAUREEN MCDONALD

Maureen McDonald is executive director of the Denver Metro Chamber leadership Foundation

Innovation and Entrepreneurship

THE BOSTON TRIP started with a keynote from one of the top innovators and entrepreneurs in the country. Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande. the chairman of Sparta Group LLC, A123 Systems, Sycamore Networks, Tejas Networks, Sandstone Capital and Hive Fire.

Deshpande serves as a board member of MIT, and through the Deshpande Foundation that he established with his wife, Jaishree, launched MIT's Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation in 2002. The Deshpande Center has awarded more ilum 80 grants to support the commercialization of a wide range of emerging technologies in biotechnology, biomedical devices, information technology, new materials, tiny tech and energy innovation...